Music: Janne Mark — ‘Igen Berørt’ ft. Arve Henriksen
The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs marks a turning point
Noah Feldman writes: It took almost a decade, but Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court finally found a way to stand up to President Donald Trump’s executive power overreach, striking down the tariffs that are the signature initiative of his presidency. Not since the Supreme Court struck down the first New Deal in 1935 has the court reversed a policy of comparable importance to a sitting president. The 6-3 decision gives Trump two options. He can accept the…
Even after losing at the Supreme Court, Trump has plenty of ways to reconstruct his trade regime
Rogé Karma writes: The Trump tariffs are dead. Long live the Trump tariffs? This morning, in a 6–3 opinion, the Supreme Court struck down the bulk of the president’s sweeping global tariffs. The majority ruled that the law Donald Trump had used to carry out most of his trade policies does not, in fact, allow the president to impose tariffs at all. This is a major setback for Trump’s trade agenda, but it is far from a fatal one. The…
WSJ: The embarrassing truth about tariffs
In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal says: The White House this week opened a new front in its war on the Federal Reserve: a fight about Fed research on the consequences of President Trump’s tariffs. If the tariffs are such an unambiguous economic and political winner, why is the Administration so defensive about them? The flap concerns the analysis we told you about last week by four economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They found that…
Trump employs authoritarian icons as his image glowers down from federal buildings
Philip Kennicott writes: Most of the buildings in the Depression-era Federal Triangle development have an irregular geometry. The Federal Trade Commission office, known as the Apex Building, is a right-angled triangle with its sharpest point rounded off. The Ronald Reagan Building, added in 1998, looks a bit like a stumpy meat cleaver. And the Justice Department building, named for the slain senator, former attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, is a four-sided polygon with corners beveled flat. It…
U.S. plans online portal allowing hate speech and terrorist propaganda to be spread across Europe
Reuters reports: The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, a move Washington views as a way to counter censorship, three sources familiar with the plan said. The site will be hosted at “freedom.gov,” the sources said. One source said officials had discussed including a virtual private network function to make a user’s traffic appear to originate…
After prior attempt to enter U.S. illegally, convicted far-right agitator from UK is welcomed in Washington
First stop in the USA, meeting up with the legend that is @GenFlynn 🇬🇧 🤝🏻 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Gf1Lw0EENs — Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) February 19, 2026 The i Paper reports: Tommy Robinson has travelled to America – despite a reported travel ban and tough border controls on travellers with criminal convictions. In a series of videos and posts on X, the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, said he had “landed in the United States of America” and that…
RFK Jr. once led legal fight against Monsanto’s glyphosate. Now he supports Trump’s push to boost its production
The New York Times reports: President Trump issued an executive order late Wednesday aimed at spurring the domestic production of glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller that has figured in health lawsuits. The move immediately set off alarms among supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, and appeared to put Mr. Kennedy in an awkward position. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, which has been the target of tens of thousands of lawsuits that…
Music: Flea — ‘Thinkin Bout You’
Outrage won’t rescue us from the Epstein abyss. Disclosure and accountability must
John Hiner writes: There is a force tearing at the fabric of America, and it has nothing to do with red or blue. More accurately, it is a void – a black hole of unaccountability surrounding the horrors of Jeffrey Epstein’s network of recruiters, groomers and abusers of children. You don’t need a political philosophy or a moral compass to know where to stand on this. The behavior was monstrous. Crimes were committed. Lives were shattered. And yet, in the…
Allegations in Epstein files may amount to ‘crimes against humanity,’ UN experts say
Reuters reports: Millions of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a “global criminal enterprise” that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, according to a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The experts said crimes outlined in documents released by the U.S. Justice Department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption and extreme misogyny. The crimes, they said, showed a…
The price of admission to Epstein’s world: silence
Lisa Miller reports: When Jeffrey Epstein said “massage” in the years after he got out of jail in 2009, what did his friends and associates think he meant? Epstein had been convicted in a Florida court of sex crimes with minors in 2008. His method, reported in The New York Times at the time, had been to recruit girls as young as 14 to his home and persuade them to undress and massage him. Then he would force them to…
After my ICE arrest, I learned one crucial way to respond to trauma. We can all take part
Rümeysa Öztürk writes: It started off as a normal Tuesday. On 25 March 2025 I reviewed applications from university students applying for a summer research position at my lab. I told friends I would bring pastries from Harvard Square for the Friday dinner we were planning. I finalized my schedule for an upcoming child development conference. I worked on my dissertation proposal. The day was busy but not unusual – until I left home after quickly dressing for an iftar…
DHS opens a billion-dollar purchasing agreement with Palantir
Wired reports: The Department of Homeland Security struck a $1 billion purchasing agreement with Palantir last week, further reinforcing the software company’s role in the federal agency that oversees the nation’s immigration enforcement. According to contracting documents published last week, the blanket purchase agreement (BPA) awarded “is to provide Palantir commercial software licenses, maintenance, and implementation services department wide.” The agreement simplifies how DHS buys software from Palantir, allowing DHS agencies like Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and…
How a CIA-trained Afghan commando brought America’s shadow war to Washington
Tam Hussein writes: On the eve of Thanksgiving last year, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan who had once served alongside U.S. Special Forces, drove across the United States and opened fire on two National Guard members posted near the White House, killing one and critically wounding another. Authorities described the attack as an ambush. Lakanwal himself was injured during the shootout and taken to hospital. He is now facing a first-degree murder charge with the death penalty on the cards….
Venting anger does more harm than good
Science Alert reports: Venting when angry seems sensible. Conventional wisdom suggests that expressing anger can help us quell it, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. But this common metaphor is misleading, according to a 2024 meta-analytic review. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed 154 studies on anger and found little evidence that venting helps. In some cases, it could increase anger. “I think it’s really important to bust the myth that if you’re angry you should blow off steam…